Repair Cafe Bellarine back on the tools in 2026

THE Bellarine Repair Cafe is back in 2026, and will hold its first session next month.

Friendly volunteer repairers will be ready to fix items such as clothes, toys, furniture and electrical goods.

Organisers encourage the community to give new life to your much-loved shirt or toaster and prevent it ending up in landfill, or start the new year by getting the pants mended that have been sitting at the bottom of your wardrobe for years.

Repair Café is an international movement that started in the Netherlands more than 15 years ago. There are more than 2,500 branches worldwide, with more than 60 in Australia.

Local community groups provide services that promote repair as an alternative to tossing things out. People can bring along their broken items from home and then work together with the volunteer repair experts to save an item from the rubbish heap.

Repair Cafe Bellarine started operating in Ocean Grove in 2017 and was steadily growing until the COVID 19 pandemic forced it into recess. It restarted in July 2024, and now runs on the third Sunday of each month.

The group is also looking for some more volunteers to help with reception, which involves doing the paperwork to manage the the flow of items through the repair cafe, assisting customers, and keeping records of jobs done.

The first cafe for 2026 will be at Ocean Grove Neighbourhood House, 1 John Dory Drive, Ocean Grove on February 15 from 12.30pm to 3.30pm.

For more information, head to repaircafebellarine.org.au